


The Battle After the War

by MiseryAccompanied



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Balance in the Force (Star Wars), Ben Solo Lives, Bisexual Poe Dameron, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dark Side Rey, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Force Soulmates, General Finn, General Poe, Heroine's Journey, Love Triangles, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Mutilation, Not Lore Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Resurrection, Tags Contain Spoilers, The Force, Unrequited Love, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiseryAccompanied/pseuds/MiseryAccompanied
Summary: Set five years after TRoS.After defeating the Final Order, the rebels and the remaining survivors of Darth Sidious' attack on the galaxy are rebuilding. Between reconstruction and Rey's personal mission to eliminate lingering loyalists to the fallen Sith emperor, the young Jedi finds something within herself awakening. A darkness in her very essence. Uncontrollable and fierce, threatening to consume all traces of her light. With the trio scattered, it's up to a new disciple of the light to do the impossible to save the fate of the future.It's a race against time to stop this new, unforeseen threat of darkness and it'll take everything this newcomer can get, what with the remaining Jedi falling and resources spread far too thin... for her, restoring the balance means bringing Ben back.The battle between Light and Dark rages on.
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this idea for a while, even before I saw TRoS. I'm in-love with Rey actually struggling with the darkside and the idea that "balance" in the force means actual balance. The good guys can absolutely win, but that doesn't mean getting rid of all the Sith and letting only the goodest, purest Jedi live. I want there to be both sides of the force represented. I want the angssssst! 
> 
> I'm working out how I want to write this still, but here's the prologue. I want to let everyone know while I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, I'm not faithful to lore because I want the story to play out a certain way and I just wanna have fun. I don't care if "that's not how the WBW works" or "so and so would never do that." Like... I'll keep everyone in-character and I will stay faithful to what the 9 films have established, but I don't care who's grandma's uncle's fish actually built the Death Star. 
> 
> Also, I'm not a shipper, I don't want to get involved in any shipping wars. I just wanna write my stuff and enjoy it.  
> Thank you :)

After the last Star Destroyer fell, after Ben vanished into the force, after all the loss and bloodshed and destruction, there was no happy ending. There were no wedding bells, no rosy-cheeked younglings to be raised on an idyllic little farm, no domesticity and peace.

Not for Rey, at least. For Rey, it was pain; constant biting, gnawing, thrashing pain. Agonized screams wrenched from her stomach. Hollowed-out suffering. An aching and festering phantom limb. Being dismembered at a cosmic level. And there was no relief for that. No amount of meditation. No amount of letting the Force flow through her could fill that hole. Instead, reaching out to the Force seemed to make it more apparent that there was something missing there now.

There was no _talking_ about it either. No one wanted to hear the angst when there were leveled cities and entire planets missing from solar systems now. There were bigger things to worry about than broken hearts and severed links. Being the one remaining half of a dyad meant nothing to grieving parents, to sole survivors of whole civilizations, to slaves freed only to inherit ruin.

The embers of grief turned into ash in her mouth, looking into Finn’s almost lifeless eyes as he breathed his true first breath _free._ Looking at how exhaustion, body and spirit, settled into the age-lines on Poe’s face as he collapsed into the grass and let out howling gasps of _relief._ It was finally **over** , the war _they_ had been fighting was finally over. They’d won.

And yet, for Rey, who was left on Jakku— _left alone_ —after finally finding _someone_ … For Rey, she had lost. 

The guilt settled in deep. No matter how irrational, the guilt for _feeling_ was immense. And in the privacy of her thoughts, Rey couldn’t help but feel like it was a punishment for daring to dream, for hoping that things would finally go her way. Not since she was given away, was life ever good to her. But this, this punishment… this broken heart. It was all too cruel for supposedly being the _hero_ of this story, the savior of the galaxy.

How come she was the only one deprived of the things she wanted the most? The _thing._ To not be alone. To truly and utterly belong.

It was the reconstruction process, the rebuilding and restoring the galaxy to wholeness, to being hospitable even, that allowed Rey to throw herself into Jedi texts to lock away her emotions. They didn’t need her in the diplomacy processes, didn’t need a Jedi to tell refugees where they could relocate to. A trip to Tatooine, a trip to Ach-To—she flew wherever the Falcon could take her, she just needed to be away. Poe didn’t fight her, Finn laid a kiss on her forehead before she left, but it lacked the warmth he used to have.

Nobody missed her.

Rey settled into this kind of stoicism, this migrant lifestyle, only returning to base when called upon or when she couldn’t find the supplies to keep going.

These trips often collected stowaways; peoples trapped in the far reaches of space after being held captive by the First Order. Rey didn’t mind. Never turned anyone away. Her heart was locked away, but she wasn’t unfeeling. Her charitableness did not diminish.

And then there was Tau Delta. The first time she’d _used_ her ‘saber. The warm yellow light-blade tainted by loyalist blood. So long as there remained those who whispered Palpatine’s name, even in the darkest corners of the galaxy, there was a chance the emperor could return, could steal what remained of Rey’s happiness. She would spend the rest of her days hunting them down, if it meant that Ben’s sacrifice was not in vain.

This was an endeavor she took on alone. As, for one, the new alliance was not even yet in its infancy and could not spare any of its scarce resources for Rey’s hunt. And two, this was a personal mission. Personal in a way that aligned itself with revenge … not that Rey would ever admit that to herself. She was too devoted to the word of the Jedi to seek revenge.

No. This was for the good of everyone.

And in that good is how, while also on her mission on Tau Delta, Rey rescued a child from captivity.

The girl was realistically not that much younger than Rey, less than ten years, but malnourishment stole her natural development. She flinched at light and sound, clearly kept caged when not performing for her master. She wouldn’t tell Rey what her purpose truly was, only that there were others who she’d out-survived.

Rey didn’t hesitate when she struck him down, his pale and wrinkled body so fragile in appearance that it looked he would break simply from hitting the floor. She didn’t blink when he tried to crawl away from her. She felt nothing when she stabbed him through the heart.

This wasn’t revenge either.

The girl, Rey sensed, was like her; sensitive in the Force. Perhaps, it was destiny she should find her. But Rey didn’t believe in such things anymore. That would mean that it was the girl’s destiny to be tormented, for her fellow captives to die. Rey didn’t want to believe in destinies because how could anyone _want_ to live, if their destiny was to be used and discarded by a parasitic Sith, to die fighting in a war they had no part in, to die in the arms of their soulmate.

Time seemed simultaneously to stop moving and to move so fast that day’s merged.

Poe became silver. Finn became stern. The girl had a name. Ajan Kloss had buildings. A sprawling civilization where there was once just tents and junker ships.

When she stepped off the Falcon and onto a paved runway, Rey was astonished. Alienated. Tired.

Finn… _General_ Finn greeted her first with a curt nod and then with a worlds-weary smile. She hugged him instinctively. “You look like hell,” she remarked quietly, not feeling as chatty as she was leading on.

In his office, she let herself sink into an armchair that was probably overstuffed to make up for the fact that it was probably rotting when they first salvaged it. How much of this stuff they’d salvaged from the emperor’s vast estates and fallen crafts…? “You look different…” Finn announced, half smiling and half quizzical.

Rey stared down at her robes and then at her face in the reflection of her cup, not sure what Finn was getting at. _Did she look all that different? Certainly, she didn’t look_ old _yet._

Finn snapped his finger, a revelation, “your hair’s longer.” Indeed, it was. Five years without a trim had lent Rey’s hair time to climb down her shoulders, hanging just at her waist now. “I know it’s your signature and all… but you might have to give up the style,” he teased. This being the most playful Finn had been in a long time. Perhaps this will be the most playful he will be in a long time too.

Rey chewed on the thought. Not entirely in disagreement. It was hard to keep it up in the usual three buns now. Too much hair, too much time spent taming it. It served more now as a reminder of the past five years than it did of her parents anymore. Staring into the reflection, the buns looked more like looping ponytails anyway. Shrugging her shoulders, Rey sighed, “I guess I have the time now. Maybe I’ll reinvent myself like you did… _General._ ” It sounded more biting than she intended.

It rolled off his shoulders. It wasn’t something he asked for, just as she didn’t ask for her fate either. Finn swiveled a little in his chair, “believe it or not, Rey, politics have taught me the patience of a Jedi.”

“They turned Poe gray,” she countered.

He laughed, and the light was there, but guarded, “oh, no… that’s the learning humility.”

* * *

Rey didn’t immediately take off like she used to. Instead, she let Finn tour her around, let herself be schmoozed, let her guard down as much as they could both allow. They were fragmented in ways that the other could never understand.

All was peace in the new alliance.

And then the nightmares came.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: horror-themes, body horror, mutilation.

There’s never a warning when the nightmares come.

When the darkness bleeds into her consciousness and begins to choke her like acrid smoke.

It feels like being poisoned.

Being burned down to the bone by something unbearably cold. 

Tonight, it pursues her across the hot sand dunes of Tatooine, in the form of a memory and a fantasy.

She’s standing, sinking almost, in this golden ocean. A black gloved hand stretches out to her and Rey feels no hesitation as she takes it. How it’s warm… so unreasonably warm. Her fingers curl across the smooth palm, her hand feels like it’s being swallowed in his grasp.

He was like a giant. So physically intimidating was the visage of Kylo Ren... Rey cranes her head skyward and gasps, eyes settling upon the soulless gaze trained upon her. So deep, so dark _. So empty._ This isn’t Kylo; there is no mask. No hatred. No anger. But this isn’t Ben, either. He wears no expression. His skin is pallid, the usual color in his face absent, red lips ashen. 

Tears flow down her face. Ben’s leather-clad hand is sticky upon her cheek, movement stilted like coordination was difficult. She closed her eyes, leaning into his hand to help it wipe away her sorrows.

She tries to speak, but her throat is full of sand. It hurts to breathe; her lungs feel stinging and scratchy. Each grain cuts her open. Rey exhales, sobs. _Pain._ The pain of loss. The pain of existing afterward.

His hands cradle her face now, great body bowing to cover the gulf space between them. He is like a large shadow in this way. An intangible, but heavy presence. He blots out the binary suns; their lips meet and it’s like they’ve gone supernova. 

The heat is instant and intense. Bright. Terrifying. Cleansing.

Then it’s dark.

A darkness Rey has never felt before the nightmares began. Coiling and frigid, tangling around her limbs. Ben’s face draws back. He’s covered in the dark tendrils too. Rey knows what’s about to happen, even before it does. She tries to scream.

Ben’s expression doesn’t change as he’s speared through the chest. Through the stomach. Through arms and legs. She can’t look away, immobilized as he’s impaled. Dismembered. _Destroyed_ , before her eyes. 

She tears herself from the hold the darkness has on her, thrashing until she finds her arms pinned roughly down onto the cot. She doesn’t immediately recognize coarse fabric or flesh-and-blood hands, the real world around her does not yet exist. The hold on her still feels burning cold and evil.

Rey screams. A surge of something animalistic shoots through her body and the grip on her is instantly stripped.

There’s a solid crash, something colliding with the cabinets and breaking them with the force of impact makes her head snap up, makes her throw herself out of bed.

Rey’s in her room. And there’s a faint light buzzing from a holo-pad on a nearby table.

The girl is on the floor in a heap, gasping and wheezing. Rey can’t see her face, it’s too dark; Rey can barely make out her silhouette as she claws at the rug. 

Rey is grasped by horror. _This can’t be happening again_. She stares at the vague impressions of her hands in the dark and remembers how she’d thrown _lightning_ from them all those years ago. Her stomach roiled. 

“ _Rey_...?” The girl hiccups and it forces the older woman to make a decision. To face the consequences of her actions, or to run. How she _wanted_ to run. Run from the darkness and the pain. The pain _she_ causes. 

Rey kneels beside the girl and gently rolls her onto her side, patting her back to try to sooth her hideous, wracking coughs. “I don’t know what happened,” she couldn’t get the tremble out of her voice. Not when she felt the girl’s fear, a klaxon sounding through their tentative connection through the force. It _screamed_ at her. _Get away from me! Monster!_ Like a frightened animal, wounded, cornered. Yapping at the descended predator, teeth bared, and hackles raised. Rey tries to ignore it, “are you hurt?”

A weakened cough was her only answer, the girl either seemed not to hear the question posed or feared to answer. _Fear_.

The visceral honesty of it all made Rey bow her head. Everyone else would politely dismiss her gross use of her power, could feign understanding at her lack of control. The girl held no such loyalty, no such commitment to her. She could see the darkness in Rey and she seldom was unguarded in her midst. No matter the assurance from Finn, she perpetually navigated Rey’s world like danger was afoot. 

_“It’s the trauma. She was a slave, Rey...”_ Finn always tried to assure her, to assuage Rey’s re-emerging self-doubt.

 _No, Finn… can’t you see? It’s_ me _. She can sense the evil in me. Why can’t_ you _see it too?_

“ **Finn** …” the girl wheezed softly, and Rey snapped back to focusing on her in the scant light. Before she could ask what was meant by the utterance of his name, the girl proceeded, “you’re going to kill him, Rey. I saw it. You’re going to kill him.”


End file.
